) so I had to wait until it passed. Thankfully, it has, and my next one-shot story is planned to be out on either Friday or the weekend.Director's cut: Caught and Punished, chapters 11 & 12 · 2:09am Apr 6th, 2020
Wow, I got a lot to say here.
First, chapter 11.
I figured it was time to mention that more ponies in Ponyville were getting used to Sam and thinking better of him. This was the point of him saying the “dirty looks” were stopping. I went back and forth about having some ponies say “hi” or something to him as he and Starlight were heading to Twilight’s castle, but decided to just have it summarized.
Next, as I was writing the story, I was wondering if I should have the news of Princess Cadance and Shining Armor having a baby (AKA Flurry Heart) be mentioned as an “off-screen” event, or address it “on-screen”. Once I got to this chapter, I decided to have it on-screen, and it also gave Twilight a chance to be adorable/adorkable. Up to chapter 11, she’s only really had cute moments in chapter 1 of this story, so it was due. If you have seen the season 5 episode “The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows”, you’ll know how Twilight said she was going to be an ant, not an aunt. I HAD to have some fun with that.
I also thought that it would make sense for Twilight’s character for her to eventually feel bad about sticking Starlight with Sam out of the blue (though she offered to pay him bits for it) so that was where the guilt came in. This idea was partly inspired from my HiE story A Giant Adventure to Equestria (AGATE) where Twilight goes through a lot of guilt, but for very different reasons and even tried to hide it. Unlike the AGATE Twilight, the Twilight in Caught and Punished wasn’t really trying to hide it.
Anyway, as for changes that happened during editing chapter 11, first, there were some additions. The part in the train with Pinkie pulling out collars out of her mane, thinking it might have been “Surprise Collar Day” wasn’t there before editing. This leads to another addition: Starlight’s new collar was never mentioned in the chapter at first. I caught this and thought it wouldn’t make sense for nopony to bring up her wearing one, so all lines about it were added during editing.
A cut happened very late in the chapter. In narration, Sam mentioned that the Mane 6 (though he didn’t say “Mane 6”) Spike, Starlight, and himself had to cross a bridge -- the one the Mane 6 had to cross to reach the village in the season 5 premiere. He also said that he was scared of heights and only crossed because Twilight and Starlight promised to catch them if the bridge broke. I later cut this out.
A change that's simply an edit change was about the train letting the group off. Originally, it was at a train station. Later, I remembered that, in the season 5 premiere, the group wasn’t dropped off at a station, but simply let off, like someone dropping you off at the side of the road. That made me need to edit it so they weren’t dropped off at a train station. The train also left in reverse in the show after dropping the Mane 6 off, so it happened here too.
One last thing about chapter 11: it was initially named “Twilight’s Guilt”, but Donnnnn suggested changing it, since her guilt wasn’t the overall theme for the chapter. In fact, I changed the name twice. The name was first changed to “Starlight’s return, part 1”, but once I thought of the name for chapter 12, I changed it again to its current name: Returning to Our Town.
And now I can finally get to chapter 12!
I’ll start off with the edit changes this time. Originally, early on, Sam joined in with Twilight and the others and told the ponies of Our Town that they could trust Starlight. But after thinking about it, since they didn’t know anything about him, him saying it would have, at best, limited effectiveness, so I edited it for him to stay quiet. If they wouldn’t have listened to even Twilight, Sam wouldn’t have been able to change anything by speaking up. Sam’s role in chapter 12 was to be there to ease Starlight, but it was mostly the mane 7 show.
Another, much bigger edit, was that Double Diamond actually didn’t forgive Starlight at first, but said that he’ll need some time to do that. Don suggested a change for him to do it, and it gave me the idea for him to forgive Starlight, but just not be ready to be her friend yet. More on this later. The third change, an addition, was the whole scene at the end in Sam’s house. During editing, the chapter ended once the gang left Our Town. I had to change that once I remembered that I never had Starlight say she wanted to stay with Sam, but foreshadowed it in chapter 7. I wondered about starting off with this in chapter 13, but quickly changed my mind and instead added it to chapter 12.
But now to my overall thoughts. If you noticed how not just Sam and Twilight, but also Rainbow Dash, laid a hoof on Starlight when she was telling the villagers about her history with her parents, this was for a reason. For Twilight, it was to show she was still feeling a little guilty, so she wanted to let Starlight know she’s there this time, even though she was there the whole time when Starlight was apologizing to the rest of the Mane 6 in chapters 5 and 6. Rainbow had her hoof on Starlight to show that out of the Mane 6, next to Twilight, Rainbow wants to look out for Starlight the most. If you suspected this might happen from how Rainbow was the first to hug Starlight when she broke down in chapter 6, despite being the last of the Mane 6 to forgive her, you picked up on the foreshadowing for this!
Lastly, why Double Diamond didn’t want to be Starlight’s friend, or (before editing) couldn’t even forgive her just yet. I planned to have one character be hesitant to forgive, or at least fully accept, Starlight right away when I first took over the story. At first, I thought about having an unnamed character in Our Town being the one to do this. Later, but not that much later -- this happened before the story was even submitted -- I thought Double Diamond could be the best choice, because he was hurt the most by Starlight's lying to him by hiding how she kept her own Cutie Mark.
Since you are more likely to hurt those that trust you the most by doing something to hurt him, this was why I picked Double Diamond. And yep, how I singled him out in the prologue was -- you guessed it -- foreshadowing. This part about Diamond acting differently from the other villagers in the prologue is one of the things that’s exclusive to my version of Caught and Punished, since Don’s version didn’t mention anything about Diamond.
I always like your Director's Cuts. I like hearing how your story changed. If I write a story I would like to do something like that, but I suck at planning, so my story would just go wherever it wants to go, and I would probably leave it be for the most part.
5236729
Not sure if it would help to say it, but when I do long stories, I think of a few big moments and use them to give me direction. But, when I see something as I write, I might think "oh, maybe I could do this instead" or something like that. I may even be reading a past chapter and think "Oh, I could use this for a later chapter" or even an idea for a entirely new story.
So in a way, I kinda do let the story goes where it wants at times, even though the moments later in the story limits it somewhat.
But if I think of something that I really like, I might even change one of the things later in the story that I was planning. One of the best examples of this atm is how Starlight's role in "A Giant Adventure to Equestria" become far bigger than I originally planned, but it fit too well to not do it.
5236749
Yeah, that's true. I probably should do that to. Thanks! Your advice is always sound.
5236752
No problem!